Is surfing the web altering our brains?

By eSchool News

October 28th, 2008

The internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work, with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change that will put the tech-savvy at the top of the new social order, Reuters reports. Gary Small, a neuroscientist at UCLA in California who specializes in brain function, has found through studies that internet searching and text messaging has made brains more adept at filtering information and making snap decisions. But while technology can accelerate learning and boost creativity, it can have drawbacks, too, as it can create "internet addiction" and has sparked a dramatic rise in Attention Deficit Disorder diagnoses. Small, however, argues that the people who will come out on top in the next generation will be those with a mixture of technological and social skills. "We’re seeing an evolutionary change. The people in the next generation who are really going to have the edge are the ones who master the technological skills and also face-to-face skills," Small told Reuters in a telephone interview. In his newly released fourth book "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind," Small looks at how technology has altered the way young minds develop, function, and interpret information. He said a study of 24 adults as they used the web found that experienced internet users showed double the activity in areas of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning as internet beginners…